Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Audio myths

I stumbled across this link.

Audio Snake Oil

According to the author, the following qualify as myths:

--Biwiring
--Expensive speaker wire of similar gauge and length, but dissimilar retail cost
--Silver vs. copper speaker wire
--Wire elevators
--Green paint around the edges of a CD
--Freezing CDs
--"Anti-static" CD treatments
--"Demagnetizing" CDs
--Expensive aftermarket power cords
--Expensive power receptacles
--Sand bags placed on, in, and around electronic audio components
--Speaker wire and audio interconnect "break-in"
--Speaker "break-in"

Yes, hh, that lists quite a few, although it unfortunately doesn't exhaust all the possibilities. Hopefully the mindless repetition of such old audiophiles' tales will give way to common sense and audio engineering principles(but we shouldn't hold our breaths).

So you're saying I can use any old power cord on my CD demagnetizer; it doesn't have to be Monster Cable ?

Oh man, I was about to purchase 50 lbs of sand to put in my TV. I figure if it can help out speakers, why not the video too.

It is amazing that with all the intelligent audio folk out there that so many still believe in that crap. Really quite sad, if you think about it.

Actually, I have an old 13" TV that died and didn't seem real fixable. Rather than throwing it out, I was thinking of filling it with sand, leaving it around the side of my house, and getting some footage of people trying to steal it.

Was going to use lead shot but that's getting too expensive to throw away, at least the good stuff we use for reloading.

You should paint a tropical island scene on it and put it on a shelf...

no, really...

Here's one I don't understand. CD player manufacturers tout 18 bit, 20 bit, 24 bit sampling although the informatin on the cd is only 16 bit. I don't know the science behind this but how can this make any difference? Please folks, give me some credit here. :-) I'm trying to see things from the other side.

A whole new thread for me to play Devil's advocate in...

This is one man with his own opinion, such as we all have summised. To think we'll ever get a solid answer for all to cling to as fact is like saying we're all going Democratic or Republican because one side has all the answers. Balance is good.

Hopefully out of all of this we learn a little something from each other. There's a lot of information out there. It's up to us to filter it and draw our own conclusions. I may not agree with everything on this list, but I do agree with some. I too must admit the sand bag thing seems a little out there...but again, just because this one man listed all these items does not make them all wrong.

Just trying to keep an open mind for all the thread viewers out there

Happy posting...

Riffman, I'll take a guess that what these manufacturers are touting is upsampling. Take the Denon 3910 for example. It has the Alpha 24 Plus sampling, which takes all material (16 and 20 bits alike) and upconverts it to 24-bits, which in turn is decoded as 24 bits once it reaches the receiver.

Over on Audioholics Forum they talk about Myths and Snake oil all the time not just the members but the staff who set up the forum. If you want to chat about it just pick any forum or topic and have at it, very popular topic.